It is only a state of civilisation that can produce so strange a relation as that between detectives and robbers. In any other condition of society it is inconceivable, for love is almost always mutual, and hatred reciprocal in rude states; and it is not very easy to conceive a condition where one party follows and seeks from a spirit of well-wishing, and another curses and flies from a spirit of hatred. If there is any one we wish to see more than another, it is a robber; and if there is any creature out of the place of four letters a robber wishes to be away from, it is an officer of the law. It may seem strange enough if I should be able to give a case where this was reversed, in a manner which has sometimes forced from me a laugh.

In 1847, a house in Minto Street, and another in Claremont Crescent, were broken into, and robbed of a vast number of portable articles of great value. The families had left the houses to go to the country; and the robbers, being aware that there was nobody to disturb them, had gone about their selection of articles with much artistic deliberation and skill, taking only those things which could be melted, such as silver utensils, or altered or dyed, such as silk dresses, shawls, and the like. We got intimation first of the Minto Street affair, for it was some time before it came to be known even to the proprietor that the house in Claremont Street had been disturbed. Having got my commission, I very soon came to the conclusion that, for a time at least, there could be no discovery by tracing the articles; and just as soon to another, that the whole were secreted, probably in a mass, in some of the lodging-houses resorted to by the gang—for that there was a gang I had no manner of doubt—nor was I at a loss about some of the component parts of the crew,—at least I knew that one or two well-known housebreakers had been seen in the city, and their affinities are almost a matter of course with us.

There was ingenuity, therefore, required in this affair beyond the mere care in dogging some of the artists to their dormitories, and this I soon accomplished by tracing Jane Walker, one of their callets, to the house of one Sim at the West Port. Other bits of intelligence contributed to the conclusion, that Sim’s house was the sleeping place of some of them, and the rendezvous of the whole pack. As I have already said, I have always had a craving for a full haul when I put out my net, and take my seat in the cobble to see the wily tribe get into the meshes. So on this occasion I made my arrangements with this view. At a late hour one night I took with me several constables and proceeded to Sim’s house. I arranged my men in such a way that egress was scarcely possible, while some one would be ready to help me inside in the event of an emergency; for it is no indifferent affair to go bang in upon an entire gang of desperate burglars, especially when there are women among them—a remark which requires merely this explanation, that the women egg up the men to resistance, and the men have often a desire to shew off their prowess before their dulcineas.

Having presented myself at Sim’s door, I heard a shout of merriment, indicative of a goodly company; and I confess the sound, though rough and brutal, was rather pleasant to me, for it satisfied me they were all there, and, moreover, off their guard, through the seduction of their tender dalliances. I am often fine in my self-introductions, but here I found my cue in bluntness. I opened the door with a sudden click of the sneck, and stood before as motley a crew of ruffians and viragoes as I ever remember to have seen. Nor was the effect all on one side. If I was amazed at seeing such a collection of celebrities, they were not less astonished at seeing me. Laughter did not need to hold her sides, nor Mockery to twist her chaps into mows, nor even Inebriety to flare up into a rage. All was quiet in an instant, with every eye fixed upon me as if by a charm. No placating subtlety was of any use among that gang. They were up to every manœuvre. Sim himself, James M‘Culloch, John Anderson, Hector M‘Sally, James Stewart, Agnes Hunter, Sarah Jack, Christian Anderson, and Jane Walker, had been all too well accustomed to such blandishments as mine, to be thrown off their guard beyond the instant of the working of the first charm. They simply took me for a devil, who might seize their bodies for punishment, but could not insist upon their pledges to be his for ever. In short, they knew the extent of my power, as well as their necessities to resist it, but only if resistance could be successful.

I had stopt their merriment;—but just allow me, as I stand for a moment before them, to say, it is no merriment that these strange beings enjoy: their hearts have no part in their laughter, which is a mere dry shaking of the lungs, and better named as a cackle, or sometimes a vociferation. It is almost always the result of a personal gibe; for there is no real friendship to restrain them, and their art is a deadly fly that kills at the first leap. They seem to find some relief from the tearing devil within, by tearing their brother devils without; and though it is done under the semblance of fun, it is as cruel and wicked as they can make it. But then the very cruelty in the personality gets applause; the laugh rings, and every one has his turn to be quizzed and gibed—the bearing of which, again, is a kind of stern virtue among them. It is all a heart-burning, with a flickering ebullition over the surface; and the effort seems to be to produce pain, and yet to make it pass as a kind of pleasure. I know them well; and could, at a distance, distinguish between the merriment of people with sound hearts, and that of these artificial beings, as well as I could do were I among them, and knew the two sets of characters.

A moment sufficed for my introduction.

“There are some things that have gone amissing,” said I, “and I want to know whether any of them are here.”

“Nothing,” said Sim; but the manner of his “nothing” shewed me it was a misnomer for “something.”

“No harm in seeing. I don’t charge any of you, but I may just say that you are as safe in your seats there, as you could be if you had wings and used them. I have friends at the door, so—quiet. Sim, I want to speak with you in the other room. Get a candle.”

All authority lies in bearing. The man obeyed like a machine, got his dip lighted, and followed me into the small room, (there were only two in the house,) when I took the light from him, with the intention of looking into hidden places, but there was strangely enough no necessity for searching. There before me stood a huge trunk or box, more like a coal bunker or ship’s locker than a chest, and sufficient to have held within its capacious sides a jeweller’s stock. Knocking my foot against it, and finding it heavy with contents,

“Why,” said I, “how comes this to be here?”

“All right,” replied the man; “nothing of yours there.”

“Let me see,” said I. “Get me the key.”

“The key is with the proprietor,” said he, coolly. “Why you know, sir, it’s an emigrant’s box that there, and he has merely left it with me till the ship sails, when he will return for it—all right.”

“And there’s nothing in it belonging to these gentry in the kitchen?”

“Not a handkerchief.”

“Well,” said I, “as I don’t wish this trunk to emigrate before I know what’s inside, I will break it open.”

And going into the kitchen, I seized a big salamander, standing by the fire, and without saying a word to the no doubt wondering company, who were working hard to look easy, I returned to the room. Up to this kind of work, I managed, by getting a lever point for my poker, to send the top of the box in splinters in a very few minutes, but with a crash which, like the laughter of my friends in the kitchen, had more sound than music in it. And lo! there was a sight—a veritable curiosity box—a bazaar in miniature; in short, as I afterwards ascertained, all the valuables abstracted not only from the house in Minto Street, but from that in Claremont Crescent, had been brought together, as if by the hand of Prospero’s little friend, for my gratification, and yet with no bidding from me.

I had taken a large liberty, and I must take a larger to justify the first. I had provided myself with some of Mrs M‘G——r’s marks—the lady in Minto Street—so I straightway began to turn out the fine poplins and silks, which overlaid the jewellery at the bottom, till I could find a handkerchief or some article bearing a name, and that I very soon did, in a damask towel, bearing “M‘G. 6.” I was now relieved from all fears of a misused freedom.

“All right,” said I.

And going to the door, I called on my men. There was here a little mismanagement. They were not so close as they should have been, and M‘Sally and Stewart, the real burglars, getting desperate, jostled the first officer, and pushing him up against the wall, escaped; nor were the other men sufficiently on the alert to be able to intercept them, so that they got themselves reserved, as it were, for a fate which is the real burden of my story.

The trunk, and all the remaining members of the gang, were straightway under better keeping than that of Mr Sim, who considered all so right; but I had to lament the want of my chiefs, the very men on whom my mind was set, and for whom I would have given the whole contents of the locker; but I was not to be done out of them by a mere flight, which did not exclude me from a long shot, and that shot I proceeded to prepare. The prior history of M‘Sally enabled me to suspect that he was away down by the east coast to get to London, and I had no doubt Stewart would accompany him, so I straightway got the Lieutenant to forward their portraits to Berwick-on-Tweed, Newcastle, and Shields, with directions to the different Lieutenants to seize and send them back to Edinburgh, where they were specially wanted. As matters turned out, this was a happy suggestion, and proved a comfort to me after my distress.

My gentlemen, just as I suspected, had made their way down to Berwick, with very little money as it appeared, yet with such a locker at home, upon which they had expected to live and feast for many months, (alas, the vanity of human wishes!) and arrived there pretty late at night. They, of course, wanted lodgings, and why should they not get them for nothing, where the philanthropic people of the old town, reversing their former fire-eating character, had prepared the town-hall, of ancient renown for bellicose orations, as a place of refuge for the destitute. The two refugees were even in their misfortunes inclined to be humorous, and took it into their heads to act the part of industrious “tramps,” travelling to the south in search of work, and apply for a night’s lodging at the very town-hall itself. But who had the privilege of giving out the tickets? Why, who better qualified than the Superintendent of Police himself, who could, from his office, make the proper distinction between the really deserving applicants, and those to whom a jail was a more fitting place of abode? And so it was the Superintendent had the charge of the house of refuge as well as the house of bondage. They had run away for housebreaking, and escaped the fiend M‘Levy, and there was a neat squareness in playing off a trick upon his brother of Berwick. A glimpse of the sunshine of fun comes well after the gloom of misfortune; besides, sweet is refuge to the houseless; and then a supper and a breakfast was not to be despised.

They were accordingly soon brought before the dispenser of refuge and justice, who was busy at the time scanning a paper.

“Poor workmen, sir, going south in search of work,” said M‘Sally; “would your honour pass us to the town-hall?”

“Where from?” said the Superintendent.

“Aberdeen.”

“Your names?”

“James M‘Intosh and John Burnet,” was the reply.

“Blue coat and grey trousers,” muttered the Superintendent, as he looked at the paper—“blue coat and grey trousers,” he repeated, as he glanced at M‘Sally. “Monkey jacket and buff vest,” looking again at the paper—“monkey jacket and buff vest,” directing his eyes to Stewart.

“We have been travelling all day, sir,” said Stewart, “and are weary; please pass us on.”

But the Superintendent was in no hurry.

“Grey eyes and foxey whiskers,” he muttered, again getting more curious, as he read and looked, and looked and read, still going over features—“sharp nose, grey eyes, fiery-coloured whiskers—dark eyes and black whiskers”—and so forth, until at last he came to the conclusion—“the very men.”

“Yes,” he said, as he rose and touched a small bell, “I will pass you, but not to the town-hall of Berwick.”

“Any other quarters for poor destitutes will do, sir,” said Stewart.

“What think you of the police-office of Edinburgh,” said the Superintendent, “where you, Hector M‘Sally and Joseph Stewart, are, according to this paper I have in my hands, and which I got just as you entered, charged with breaking into a house in Minto Street, and another in Claremont Crescent, and stealing therefrom many valuable articles.”

“We are not the men,” said the two, determinedly.

“Read your paper again, sir,” said M‘Sally, “and compare, and you’ll find we are not the men.”

The Superintendent was taken aback, and did look again.

“Would you read out the description?” said M‘Sally.

“I think you have got on a blue coat and grey trousers,” said the Superintendent.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you have got grey eyes and foxey whiskers?”

“No, sir; black eyes and black whiskers.”

“And you,” said the Superintendent, a little put out, turning to Stewart, “you have a monkey-jacket and buff vest?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And black eyes and beard?”

“No, sir; grey eyes and light whiskers.”

“Well, then, how stand your noses? You”—to M‘Sally—“have a turned-up one, and a little awry, I think?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you”—to Stewart—“have a very long one, raised in the middle?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, well; suppose the clothes of the one put upon the other—it was easy for you to change them—and we have you to a button. Bertram, pass these gentlemen to a cell for the night, and I shall get them sent off to Edinburgh in the morning.”

Next day we had a letter setting forth the dodge of the exchange, and the curious way they had fallen into the hands of the Superintendent. It was thence an easy business to get our two gentlemen to go to the right shop—Norfolk Island—after having tried the wrong one at Berwick. They and Anderson were transported for seven years. M‘Culloch was acquitted.